Children iN SMILE

The SMILE Program is a five-year (April 2013 –March 2018) Cooperative Agreement between Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). CRS Nigeria  www.crs.org leads the SMILE consortium consisting of ActionAid Nigeria www.actionaid.org/nigeria and Westat www.westat.com. SMILE is designed to scale-up care and support services for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in Benue, Kogi, Edo, and Nasarawa states and the FCT. The program seeks to improve the wellbeing of 600,000 Vulnerable Children (VC) and 150,000 caregivers. It is being implemented through an umbrella grants mechanism (UGM) whereby Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) receive sub-grants to support capacity strengthening and OVC program implementation at the community level. The project also strengthens the Nigerian VC response by working at the state level to enhance the coordination and monitoring capacity of the five State Ministries of Women Affairs and Social Development (SMWASD) and Social Welfare Departments of targeted Local Government Areas (LGA). In addition, SMILE facilitates CSOs’ collaboration with communities to increase access to integrated and comprehensive services for vulnerable children and households with a focus on household economic strengthening (HES); quality nutrition and food security services and increased access to HIV and TB services.